House Of Representatives U S

An admitted penny stock scam artist, wearing a hood to conceal his identity, told a House subcommittee Thursday that penny stocks traded over the counter are often controlled by organized crime. Lorenzo Formato, a former broker and promoter of the inexpensive but highly risky securities known as penny stocks, testified that "organized crime has their hand on the shoulder of someone inside any (over-the-counter) brokerage that's making money."

The House on Thursday passed the most sweeping government plan yet to shore up the troubled housing market and help people struggling to pay their mortgages, adopting legislation that would underwrite $300 billion in new loans and keep an estimated 500,000 homeowners out of foreclosure. Backers contend the bill -- or something close to it -- has a good chance of becoming law even though Senate Republicans have criticized it and the White House has threatened a veto.

James E. Rogan has wedged his 6-foot-1 frame into a phone booth between the men's room and a kitchenette in a House office building. The air stinks of stale cigar smoke and there's no place to sit. But who cares? His 20 minutes in this cramped closet will be rewarded handsomely. On the other end of the line is radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy, broadcasting live to a syndicated audience of hard-right Clinton haters.

Two Republican House members resigned Thursday from the board supervising teenage pages, accusing a Democratic appointee of failing to inform them about sexual and criminal activity by at least four youngsters. The board's chairman, Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.), supported the Republicans, blaming House Clerk Lorraine C. Miller -- the day-to-day administrator of the page program -- for failing to immediately notify page board members of all the inappropriate conduct.

The House of Representatives impeached President Clinton on Saturday, tarnishing his legacy by making him only the second president in the nation's history ordered to stand trial in the Senate. In approving two articles of impeachment largely along party lines, the Republican-controlled House alleged that Clinton perjured himself before a federal grand jury and obstructed justice as he sought to conceal his extramarital affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

Responding to its most explosive political scandal in years, the House voted unanimously early today to authorize disclosure of the banking records of 355 current and former members of Congress who wrote bad checks at the House bank during a recent 39-month period.

Eighty-two Republican members of the House of Representatives are calling for the immediate resignation of the American Bar Assn.'s president for referring to some members of Congress as "reptilian bastards." In a letter to ABA President George Bushnell, a Detroit lawyer, the GOP members called his phrase "a reprehensible and unforgivable insult" to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other Republicans.

After three hours of uncommonly rancorous debate, the House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to formally reprimand Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of two openly gay congressmen, for ethics violations stemming from his relationship with a male prostitute. The 408-18 vote came after the House easily turned aside attempts by some Republicans to impose the harsher penalties of censure or expulsion on Frank. In an emotional speech on the House floor, Frank apologized to his colleagues.

Republican Rep. Christopher Shays, who is in a tough reelection fight, said in Hartford that the Abu Ghraib prison abuses in Iraq were more about pornography than torture. "It was a National Guard unit run amok," Shays said in an interview with the Associated Press. "It was torture because sex abuse is torture. It was gross and despicable.... This is more about pornography than torture."

The financial accounting used by the House of Representatives is in utter chaos and should be revamped, outside accounting analysts said Tuesday after conducting the chamber's first independent audit. The Price Waterhouse accountants said that the records are so shoddy that they could not give an opinion on their reliability. "They have found the whole system is a mess," said House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

A 12-term Republican House member said he won't run for reelection, and officials in Wyoming expect a similar announcement today from a seven-term GOP representative. Rep. James H. Saxton of New Jersey is the 14th House Republican to announce retirement since the GOP lost its majority in the 2006 elections. He cited health reasons for his decision. Rep. Barbara Cubin of Wyoming is expected to be the 15th. Three House Democrats have announced they won't seek reelection.

They sat just two feet apart, the mother of a journalist confined to a Chinese prison and the wealthy head of the giant U.S. company that helped put him behind bars. But before Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang took his seat to testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday, he bowed deeply before the woman. The hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Yahoo's conduct in China was a rare public shaming of the Internet leader, whose actions led to the imprisonment of journalist Shi Tao.

Unable to force President Bush to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, House Democrats settled Tuesday for a less controversial measure to require more reports on plans to pull forces out. But in an indication of the debate within Democratic ranks about how to challenge Bush's wartime leadership, three senior House members also threatened to hold up funding for the war and proposed a tax to pay for it. Democratic Reps. David R. Obey of Wisconsin, John P.

The House voted 244-181 to give lawmakers a pay raise of approximately $4,400 that will increase their salaries to almost $170,000. The cost-of-living raise gets lawmakers back on track for automatic pay raises after fights between Democrats and Republicans last year and again in January killed the pay hike due this year. It was the first interruption of the annual congressional pay hike in seven years. The Senate has not indicated when it will deal with a similar measure.

In their strongest challenge yet to President Bush over the war in Iraq, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed a war spending bill Friday that requires the withdrawal of most U.S. forces by late summer 2008. The measure passed, 218 to 212, on a largely party-line vote, drawing support from just two Republicans after an emotional debate. House members who fought in Vietnam and Iraq delivered some of the most impassioned speeches -- both for and against the measure.

As House Democrats edged closer Thursday to securing the votes to pass a war funding bill that would compel the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that the current troop buildup would be jeopardized by any delays in enacting such funding. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and her lieutenants appeared to make more progress in their drive to reach a majority as more of the war's staunchest opponents lined up behind the measure.

19 congressional seats will change hands, with eight states gaining and 13 states losing representatives. Here's where the battles will be most intense over redrawing of district lines: CALIFORNIA: Republicans, still smarting from the congressional redistricting imposed by Democrats 10 years ago, are positioned to do better with Pete Wilson holding the governorship. Democrats still control the Legislature but are unlikely to match their gain of six U.S. House seats after the 1980 census.

She has been silent for nearly four years. Today, the former CIA officer whose unmasking fueled a political uproar and criminal probe that reached into the White House is poised to finally tell her own story -- before Congress. Valerie Plame's testimony will have all the trappings of a "Garbo speaks" moment on Capitol Hill, with cameras and microphones arrayed to capture the voice of Plame, the glamorous but mute star of a compelling political intrigue.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) likened it to a reunion of the Beatles -- although with a Fab Five instead of four. It had been three years since the entire Federal Communications Commission had appeared as one in front of a House committee. On Wednesday, newly empowered Democrats subjected commissioners, particularly Chairman Kevin J. Martin, a Republican, to a five-hour grilling on communications issues, signaling they will watch the FCC's every move.